Zimbabwean telco Econet Wireless says it is owed more than $26 million in interconnection fees by state run telecom companies.

Earlier this year, it was reported that Econet and Telecel Zimbabwe had paid part of their licence renewals fees through swapping debt owed to them by NetOne and TelOne in outstanding interconnection fees. Telecel Zimbabwe is still battling licensing and regulatory issues in Zimbabwe.

Telecel said in an update on the issue on Sunday, "The process of legal engagement has been initiated and we have full confidence that the government of Zimbabwe will resolve these open issues in the interest of the Zimbabwean people – in a fair and transparent manner."

Econet has previously disconnected NetOne citing unpaid interconnection fees and there are fears that the row over unpaid interconnection fees could lead to termination of connectivity between state run telcos and privately owned telecom companies.

“Telecoms operators throughout the world pay each other interconnect fees for traffic terminating on each other’s networks. A disturbing trend has emerged over the last five years in which NetOne and TelOne have been increasingly unable or unwilling to settle their debts,” said James Myers, chairman of Econet Wireless on Thursday.

He said interconnectivity was governed by agreements entered between the operators and added that the two state telecom companies had “accumulated new debts amounting to about $26.3 million”.

He said If unchecked, the rate at which NetOne and TelOne have continued to default on their contractual obligations to pay interconnection fees for calls terminating on Econet Wireless’ network “will threaten the viability” of the entire telecoms sector.

Meanwhile, at the weekend Econet raised data tariffs for social media platforms like Facebook, WhatsApp and Opera Mini by more than 100%.

Market traders on the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange (ZSE) said on Tuesday the move to raise tariffs for such services is a way of clawing back sharply declining profitability and nearly stagnating revenues.

Econet last week reported that profit for the period had massively slowed down by 41% to $70 million. The fall was attributed to a 30% tariff cut for voice calls and taxes on airtime top-ups and duty on handset imports.

Econet has now introduced extra bundles for social media access, which at $2 accessibility per week cost more compared to the normal bundle of 95 cents per week.

The newly introduced extra bundles are said to have faster download speeds while the cheaper option now has slower download speeds. Econet said the extra bundles deal would allow for downloads of videos and audio files, adding that this also applied to Facebook and Opera Mini accessibility.

Econet has apparently shifted its attention to value added services such as broadband and mobile money to drum up its falling profitability.